PLAYING IT SMART by ALAN KRIGMAN

In a casino, you can succeed more by succeeding less

Say you visit a casino with $200 burning a hole in your fanny pack. Your goal is to double your money, and you're willing to go for broke on your budget in the attempt. You're comfortable betting $10 per coup, and aren't concerned whether the boom or bust happens in a short time or entails a long session.

Will all betting strategies give you the same chance of success? Or are some better than others?

Were the house to have no edge in the game you select, betting strategy wouldn't matter. You'd have a 50 percent chance of earning $200 profit before suffering $200 loss regardless of the way you wagered -- how much and on what. The situation changes when edge rears its ugly head. Your shot of going over the top as opposed to hitting the bottom drops below 50 percent. The amount you bet per round makes a difference; the larger your wager, the greater the probability you'll reach your earnings objective.

The inevitable trade-off between the likelihood of winning a coup and the size of the payoff is also relevant. That is, longshots with high returns, short odds paying small or even fractional multiples of the amount at risk, or something in the middle.

Roulette is, arguably, the most versatile of casino games in giving solid citizens the flexibility to balance probability and payoff. Craps offers opportunities to make this choice as well -- for instance by selecting Place or Lay bets, or wagering a given amount on a single number versus spreading it over several outcomes. Likewise on multi-line slot machines, a dollar might be bet on a single line or as a dime on each of 10 lines, the former yielding fewer but higher returns than the latter. You can do it at most card games too, although to a lesser extent, by playing a single spot or spreading a wager over several positions.

By considering only $10 total inside wagers at double-zero roulette, effects of the trade-off can be pictured independently of those involving bet size and edge. The specifics would differ for other games, amounts wagered, and bankrolls. However, the trends would be similar. The information can therefore help you select a gambling strategy to influence although certainly not control your fate.

Here are some figures based on computer simulations of 100,000 sessions for some representative roulette bets.

As a first example, make believe you bet $5 on each of two 12-number columns or other non-overlapping "dozens." You have a 63 percent chance, nearly two out of three, of winning $5 on any spin. Your prospects of doubling $200 before going belly-up, though, are a scant 1.4 percent. You'll get a lot of action for your stake, but don't count on bringing home the bacon.

You might, instead, drop $10 on a single column or dozen. This gives you 32 percent probability of winning $20 any spin -- about one hit out of every three tries. Your outlook for doubling $200 before being sent to the lockers improve but is still only 24 percent, roughly half of the 50 percent no-edge value.

A slightly different alternative is to bet $1 on each of 10 individual spots. You would then have 26 percent chance -- somewhat better than one out of four -- of winning $26 on any spin. The probability you'll reach your $200 goal rather than busting out is 29 percent.

Instead, you may bet $2 on each of five individual numbers. Now you don't expect many hits, because the chance is down to 13.2 percent -- about one out of seven. The payoff is $62, though. And the chance you'll reach that $200 goal is up to about 39 percent.

Perhaps you find this mystifying. Less chance of winning on any coup means more likelihood of reaching a session goal. But, then, what is there about casinos that isn't baffling? Or, as the Bobby Burns of the betting bunch, Sumner A Ingmark, so aptly alleged:

A little knowledge oft prevails,
Where intuition badly fails.

(c) 2005, ICON/Information Concepts Inc

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